In a nutshell, that’s why the former Pennsylvania senator has wrangled the lead in the Ohio
presidential primary less than three weeks before voters head to the polls, a survey released
yesterday shows.

Santorum is the new favorite of Buckeye State Republicans, leading ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt
Romney among likely voters by 7 points, 36 percent to 29 percent, in the Quinnipiac University
poll. Romney was ahead with registered voters two months ago; Herman Cain was on top two months
before that.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has 20 percent in the latest survey, while U.S. Rep. Ron
Paul of Texas gets 9 percent.

“Santorum’s a hot candidate,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac
University Polling Institute.

“This is a country where there’s a national media. And when a candidate’s hot in Missouri and a
candidate’s hot in Minnesota and a candidate’s hot in Colorado, it’s a good bet that he’s going to
be hot in Ohio.”

The big question, Brown said, is whether Santorum can stay hot — especially with the expected
onslaught of negative ads from Romney and the “super-PAC” (political action committee) supporting
his campaign.

The Romney forces already are buying air time in advance of Ohio’s Super Tuesday primary on
March 6 and the Michigan primary a week before, Feb. 28.

Yesterday, Romney’s campaign sent out emails criticizing Santorum as “big labor’s favorite
senator” because he opposed a right-to-work proposal 16 years ago and took the “wrong” stance on
various other measures in Congress.

Last week, Romney criticized Santorum’s backing of certain earmarks of federal money for
Pennsylvania projects as well as the infamous “bridge to nowhere.”

The previous day, Romney rolled out a Utah congressman to criticize Santorum’s votes to raise
the debt ceiling and on other spending measures.

But Brown said Romney should be concerned that all the negativity — already widely credited with
knocking Gingrich from the lead — will turn off voters. The pollster noted that 40 percent of Ohio
voters now have an unfavorable opinion of him, compared with 37 percent favorable.

In Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown continues to lead Republican
state Treasurer Josh Mandel, 48 percent to 35 percent. Brown has led by 13 to 15 points since
May.

The telephone poll, including land and cell lines, from Feb. 7 through Sunday, of 1,421
registered Ohio voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points
overall, and 4.2 points among the 553 Republican voters.